Vigorous nodding by pollster yields no response; so poll is terminated
before question 3.

Results of Scientific Poll:

No on G.W. Bush

Undecided on R. Nader

Conclusion:

You can fool some of the babies all of the time, and all of the babies
some of the time, but you can't fool Hannah.

Sincerely,

Nathaniel S. K. Hellerstein, Ph.D.

Enclosure

****

As you can see, infant
Hannah called the election correctly; for George Bush did indeed lose the
election, as he did not receive a popular majority; but Al Gore neither won nor
lost the election, as it was decided against him by a corrupt Supreme Court.

Thursday, August 29, 2013

Two
things in America go by the name “Star Wars”. One of them is a childish fantasy
of magical warfare, an incoherent spectacle whose obvious flaws are thinly
disguised by flashy pseudoscience. The other one involves wookies.

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Whatever the facts are, and
whichever the lies are, it’s a great show in any case. The latest plot twist
was brought to me by “New Scientist” magazine, which reports, in their October
23-29, 2012 issue, about the danger of heat stress. It seems that prolonged exposure
to “wet-bulb” (100% humidity) temperatures of 35 degrees C is fatal to human
beings. It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity, and it really can get you. First
the elderly go, then the young and the sick, and then even the healthy die if
they cannot get to shelter artificially cooled. Fortunately such weather is
rare in our present climate.

But turn up the global thermostat,
and it’s a different story; or so New Scientist reports. It says that for every
1 degree C that global temperature rises, maximum wet-bulb temperature
increases by 0.75 C; and if global temperatures go up 12 C, then the following
lands become uninhabitable without cooling systems: most of Brazil, most of
West Africa, most of Australia, Egypt through Jordan, parts of Spain and China,
most of the USA’s South, most of the USA’s Eastern Seaboard, and (gulp) almost
all of India.

12 C is a long way to go, and New
Scientist, ever alarmist, wonders out loud if that’ll happen by century’s end.
And of course they bang the AGW drum. But let’s suppose that it’s all the sun’s
fault; and let’s suppose further that only 4 C per century is the rate. Even
then, that’s only 300 years until the above-mentioned lands become hostile to
human life. Does India decamp? Where to? Do they put solar-powered AC in every
hovel for a billion villagers? Do they build a geodesic dome over New Delhi?

And over Dakar? And Cairo? And Tel
Aviv? And Shanghai? And Bejing? And Perth? And Madrid? And Memphis, Jackson,
Montgomery, Atlanta, Salem, Richmond, Louisville and Nashville?

I suppose that’s possible, given
time and money, but I’m sure you’ll agree that these are non-trivial technical
challenges. I see a science-fiction story in this!

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Michael Crichton had a darker
theory for the A in AGW: it’s a hoax, brought to you by climate scientists
intent on destroying industrial civilization. This is poor even for fiction.
First of all, you’d sooner see an aphid eat a tiger than you’d see a
climatologist defeat an oil corporation. And second, motiveless malignancy
works artistically if you’re Shakespeare but not if you’re Crichton.

Mind you, there is a plausible
motive for some people to tear down industrial civilization; namely, that we
then hire them to build it up again. This is known as ‘creative destruction’,
and it is the central engine of capitalism. Schumpter noted this, and
celebrated it; so did Friedman; so did Ronald Reagan; and so did Karl Marx.

Which means that there are two, not
one, possible conspiracies involved in AGW. Possibility #1 is that it’s a hoax,
ginned up by multinational corporations intent on being hired to rebuild
industrial civilization on grounds excluding the oil corporations. Possibility
#2 is that AGW is all too real, but the oil corporations have ginned up hoax
denial, to protect the sales of their climate-changing product.

Which of these two conspiracy
theories is true? Possibly both; maybe it’s a battle between the oil giants and
the other giants, with climatology as their battleground, facts be damned. And
possibility #2 has historical precedent; note the tobacco corporation’s
deceitful denial of the cigarette-cancer link. But as for possibility #1; how
often has a vast disinformation campaign involved every major player except an oligopoly? Surely Microsoft,
Merrill Lynch and the Chinese government could find weaker scapegoats than
Exxon and BP.

If I had to choose between
conspiracy theories, then I’d apply Occam’s Razor, and favor the smaller, more
concentrated, better motivated conspiracy; and that’s Possibility #2.